Nix On Abuse

In honor of the final day of National Accordion Awareness Month, I leave you with this chilling image of an accordion held hostage. Sadly, accordion abuse is real. Please do your part to make sure that every accordion is a wanted accordion. Play hard. Play safe. Play to liberate the free reed instruments of the world. And, in case you're wondering what's kept me from regular blog entries lately, here's the scoop. I've been playing. With power tools. With found objects. With new friends.

After three days of hilarity at Siever's Fiber Arts School, we get to pose with our display of wild-crafted garden trellises. That's me, second from the right. Have a happy holiday weekend!

A Tale of Two Solstices

Summer Solstice - 2005 Summer Solstice 2004 (do you see something in the sky?)

Blot Him Out

Tell me what you see. Trees? Wings? Butterflies? I see a thing of considerable beauty - a slowly rising tide of blue.

Betsy's Needle

What better day to muse upon my love/hate relationship with the Stars and Stripes than Flag Day. As a child in the 50's, the US flag was a sacred and respected symbol, dutifully saluted every morning with a heartfelt pledge of allegiance. As a 60's teenager and hippie, the flag became a symbol of nationalism at its worst, a symbol of warmongering, bullying and chest beating. To honor the flag was to profess solidarity with those who used the flag for all the wrong reasons - to promote the status quo in race relations, to wage war in Vietnam, to bow to the "love it or leave it" attitude which permeated the culture at that time. I never burned a flag, but I might have without remorse. For more than twenty years I refused to stand or salute or sing the National Anthem at any public event. Is it time now to find a new way to honor the flag? A new way of thinking about nationalism? About patriotism? Are they the same? I used to think so. I'm not so certain any longer. While I am completely fed up with the Right's theft of the flag as a symbol of conservative values, I realize that my own discomfort and mixed feelings about the flag have allowed the conservatives to successfully claim the flag as their own. The flag's symbolic power is capable of stirring deep emotions. The current administration knows this. It's why we don't ever see any of the 1,700 war dead returning to US soil in flag-draped caskets. Even the conservatives realize that the power of the flag could be turned against them in a flash. All of this from the fleet fingers of a colonial woman in 1777. I believe Betsy Ross left behind a needle or two, hidden in the seams of that first flag, to prick our national sensibilities from time to time, to remind us it's a flawed symbol in many ways. Flawed and meaningful and belonging to no one ideological group. Happy Flag Day.

Taking a Break

What's this? Roses and soft lighting? Yeah, I know there's a million issues to rag about, especially after a whole week of being AWOL. Then again, it's June. It's hot. Our kitchen is sitting in a dumpster in our front yard and we spent half of last week in St. Louis (where it's even HOTTER) and the bounty of roses and peonies and iris and poppies has just cast a spell over me that I'd like to enjoy for a bit. So, relax. Blog de la resistance will be back.

Operation Blue Rescue

Needed: Wombs for surplus frozen embryos (aka, "snowflakes"). Mother and any partner of her choosing (although partners are not required) must meet following requirements:

• Have a brain - as in knowing the difference between Intelligent Design Theory and real science
• Have a heart - as in being able to empathize with human beings from other cultures, social classes and skin colors
• Have courage - as in a willingness to speak out against immoral government actions and policies, ask questions and demand answers

Singles, married couples, lesbian couples and women willing to provide a "snowflake" to gay couples are encouraged to apply.

C'mon. We can beat them at their own game by molding those 400,000 clumps of frozen cells into card-carrying, voting liberals. Consider it your patriotic duty to produce a blue flurry.

P.S. to BlueGal: I know you're doing your part already so keep The Raisin away from this column so he doesn't get any more smartypants ideas.

A Summer Reading List

Following a tip from a secret source in central Wisconsin, I slipped over to this site to view the results of a poll run by The National Conservative Weekly on the 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Anyone want to start a book club? And for all you construction junkies - you know who you are - work on our kitchen, dining room and basement has begun. I have my own dumpster! More construction photos are posted at threadingwater for GHIW (who is missing all the fun at home because a week with friends in Maine sounded like more fun) and anyone else who wants to follow this project.

Secrets & Lies, Second Part

How delicious is the timing of the unveiling of Deep Throat? W. Mark Felt is today being called a "traitor" by Pat Buchanan. He is being dissed by the man he helped to convict as a common (and apparently unrepentful) criminal, G. Gordon Liddy. And, Nixon White House attorney, Leonard Garment, muses openly that Felt kept his secret for 31 years because he knew his actions were "dishonourable." Contrary to the opinions expressed by this group of criminals, rogues and fools, Mr. Felt and the Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein, and their boss, Ben Bradlee, performed their jobs with a spirit of patriotism that we could use more of today. The "Downing Street Memo" may be the Bush Administration's Watergate. If it's true that "W" and his henchmen fixed the facts to suit their policy on Iraq, they are guilty of an even more heinous abuse of power than the Nixon administration. Let's hope the renewed spotlight on Watergate will set the wheels in motion to bring down another corrupt presidency, and in so doing, restore our country to greatness.